Making Your Kid Feel Guilty About Being Bad Is Really ... Bad

Well, I guess it's time to go crawl in a hole for a few months, since I can't seem to do anything right as a parent these days. After reading about a new study that says putting a guilt trip on your kidscan harm them, I'm the one who is really feeling super-guilty.

Researchers from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland examined 150 first graders and their parents and teachers. And guess what? According to their findings, which will be published in the Journal of Family Psychology, "When parents used higher levels of guilt-inducing parenting on certain days, this was evident as atypically high levels of distress and anger among children still on the next day."

Basically, kids know when their parents are trying to use guilt to manipulate them. And apparently, it can have negative consequences.

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And here's where the "me feeling totally awful" part comes in. I've definitely laid more than one guilt trip on my son in an effort to invoke some sort of behavior out of him. And now I guess I have yet another thing to add to my list of parenting fails.

Please tell me I'm not the only mom who has resorted to one of the following guilt-tactics to get my kid to act a certain way.

When he's back-talking or giving me attitude and I want him to feel bad about it, I say, "Don't you know how much Mommy loves you? You need to be sweet to me ... I love you more than anyone."

When he gets upset about me working, I lay a guilt trip about me having extra money to buy him stuff: "Mommy works so hard every day so that you can have nice things. You still want to be able to get new toys, right?"

When I'm overwhelmed and he wants me to build a couch fort and I want him to realize how exhausted I am, etc.: "Mommy is so tired right now, honey. You know how you feel when you're really, really tired? Do you like it when you can't sit and relax? We'll do a couch fort tomorrow. I promise."

When he refuses to eat his dinner: "Honey, there are kids in the world who don't have any food to eat. I'm sure they'd love to have a hot meal to enjoy tonight."

When he simply isn't happy with me for some reason and I want to remind myself that he still thinks I'm awesome: "Well, would you rather trade me in for a different mom? A lot of kids would be really happy to have a mom like me."

OMG. The shame. No wonder stuff like this upsets kids so much. The mere act of typing out those phrases made me feel like a horrible mom.